How can one forgive unimaginable cruelty? How can we when the wounds are still raw, when we have not even let it all sink in yet? The death toll from the attacks keeps rising as we add foreign nationals to it and the hole in the New York skyline where the Twin Towers stood echo the feelings in our hearts. We have not buried all the dead yet, won’t for a long time if ever and here I am talking about forgiveness. In this season of renewal where we are supposed to wipe the slate clean by forgiving our selves and each other, in this season, I fervently wish that it was that easy. If I believed that God intervened directly in human history I would pray to wipe history clean of this tragedy. I would ask him, her or it, to return us to those small worries and minor concerns that occupied us before Tuesday September 11. A chasm separates the before and after these tragic events and it does not seem possible that the night before this happened I actually worried about my church files not yet being organized. Now, now I struggle, as the rest of you do, to make some sense of this, to fit it into our inner view of the world. How can we forgive or even talk about forgiving when we do not yet feel safe enough to fly?

But then how can we not? We must find a way out of our despairs, our fears and use our just anger wisely. Otherwise we are like Jonah, that most reluctant of prophets, still stuck in the belly of the beast, trapped in our own fears and anger. Someone said this past week that ultimately this nation’s greatest enemy was not the terrorists but hate itself. Sadly we have seen an example of that right here in the Valley when some misguided, violent man killed Balbir Singh Sodhi for wearing a turban and having brown skin. A storekeeper put up a sign saying: No Arabs allowed. Students have been harassed, beaten and taunted. Such is the language of hate, oddly familiar, interchangeable and utterly thoughtless. And yes, it can happen anywhere. In fact it will happen unless good people speak out. Yes, that is our role.

But beyond protecting the innocents and not seeing all Arabs as terrorist or Muslims as enemies there is the much harsher question that goes to the heart: Can one forgive these acts. Ever? And why should we? Do these men not deserve our condemnation and anger? Sure they do and yet there is a reason we must still work toward forgiveness, although it will take a very long time. And no, I am not ready either to forgive at this point. The wounds are too new. But the act of forgiving is ultimately an act of liberation not for those who committed the horrific acts but for those who suffered from it. What good people are struggling with on this day are some of the same questions that confronted the survivors of the concentration camps. How do you forgive the un- forgivable? There is a familiar story about two survivors; I believe it they had been in Auschwitz, one of the worst of the extermination centers. Years later they meet and one of them asks the other: Tell me did you ever forgive the guards? The other answered angrily: Forgive them, how can you ever forgive such cruelty, such inhumanity? Never! The first one said, sadly: Then my friend they still hold you prisoner. Remember on this day as we ourselves struggle that forgiving is not the same as forgetting, nor does it mean condoning horrendous acts.

Anger is natural human response but what we do with it, well that is where our choice comes in. The other day someone asked me if it was O.K. for Unitarian Universalists to believe anything. No, it is not in my book. Not if you take our values seriously. There comes a time when anger, a just anger, is the right response. It grows from our sense of what is humanly permissible and what is not. As in the case of the Holocaust we need to recognize evil for what it is. George Marshall, another U.U. minister wrote of a personal experience in Boston. As he walked his dog he noticed three young males brushing by him and crossing the street. They approached first a young woman who sensed danger and hurried away. The young men then turned their attention on a 75-year-old woman. In a brief moment it was all over and the woman laid prostate on the ground, her purse gone. Blood was coming from her ear and nose and her glasses were broken. Even her shoes had been knocked off by the violence of the attack. Later after the woman was treated and helped back home Marshall helped to identify the young men at the police station. They had taken $ 5.75 from her handbag. A few days later a lawyer for one of the young men called Marshall and asked him to intercede for his client who was the product of an abusive and poverty stricken childhood. Marshall refused. He wrote: "For years I have heard people say that liberals are too optimistic, too forgiving, too honey coated to be able to deal realistically with the problems of the modern world and now I too had turned a corner...let us not be too hasty in forgiving those who trespass against us for theirs is the upper hand and the clenched fist. Otherwise the meek shall never inherit the earth". For atrocities to happen good people must remain silent. In Denmark during World War II, when the Jewish citizens were warned by the underground and their rabbis to flee from the Nazis there were a few, who did not heed the warning. They simply could not believe that such evil was possible. So they stayed behind and was captured, became victims of their own good faith. In an inhuman system, we first loose the best of what makes us human, our trust. On a stone stele marking the Danish victims of the concentration camps mostly by the way police officers the last lines plead: Give us our humanness again!

This is my plea this day: Let us keep our humanity in the face of this tragedy. So far we have done pretty well. The outpouring of support toward the Sohdi family and the inclusion of Muslim clergy in interfaith services are signs of hope. We who pride ourselves on our reasoning, our acceptance and our religious diversity must now raise our voices as many other good people have done in a chorus of hope.

Daily life is returning ever so slowly to something near normal. Humor and paradox relieve stress and can make impossible and tragic situations bearable. Once I did a memorial service for a 24-year-old man, a professional musician and singer, who had died of Aids. He was the youngest of four siblings and it was hard on everyone, in fact I wondered if they, and I, were going to make it through the whole ceremony without leaving or breaking down. But as they arrived, carrying his ashes, in a beautiful Chinese blue porcelain urn, the sister took me aside and said: I want you to hear this. On the way they had stopped for lunch but were faced with a dilemma. Should they leave the urn in the car or carry it into the restaurant with them? They were at a loss at what to do and remained immobile until the oldest brother finally said: " Oh, never mind. I'll carry him, he ain't heavy, he's my brother." And they all laughed and cried and began to share the good memories. The healing had begun.

Part of that healing for us, for all of us will eventually be to forgive. But for now we are still in the belly of the beast although there is light up ahead. There is a way out of this dark place, this place in our hearts where we are in turmoil, eaten by fear and anger, by deep sadness and simple, ordinary disbelief. How could this have happened, how can this be real? The way out is through our caring, our daily acts of courage as we go on, love each other, speak our piece and refuse to allow this tragedy to take away our faith in humanity or in God. Forgiveness this Yom Kippur must be an act of faith. It certainly is an act of courage. All I ask is that you consider it. Think about it. Work to get out of that whale. Before it digest you! Besides as Mark Twain said: Forgive your enemies, it will drive them crazy!

When we are trust into tragedy all the flotsam and jetsam, all the daily debris with which we clutter our minds are stripped away. Left standing is the foundation of who we are: a people with a choice to make. As in this story:

There once was a famous Rabbi who had not only great knowledge from years of study but had lived and loved and suffered so much that he had become the wisest of men. People came from far away to ask him questions and he was so wise that he never failed them.

But in the same village lived a little girl whose life was not happy. She was teased and her family was poor. In fact they seldom had time for her at all so she grew up lonely and angry. One way she thought she could feel better was by showing up other children which only made her more alone. Why she thought did people speak so highly of this man? So filled with anger and envy she set out one day to show that this man was not so wise and all knowing after all. In both her hands she held a tiny songbird. It was so small that it was entirely hidden from view. When she came in front of the rabbi, who was surrounded by almost the entire village, she said: Rabbi, in my hand I hold a small bird. Tell me is it dead or alive? Her plan was that if he answered: alive she would crush the tiny singer and prove him wrong. If he said dead she would let the bird live. The rabbi looked at the young child. As he sensed what she had in mind his eyes filled with tears and he said: I only know this: you hold this bird’s life in your hands.

What is your choice this day? As we all hold each other and the world we live in cupped in our hands: What my friends is our choice today?